


always with me

by enamuko



Series: Casphardt Week [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Childhood Friends, M/M, Mild Blood, Puppy Love, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-03
Updated: 2019-11-03
Packaged: 2021-01-21 12:55:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21299810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enamuko/pseuds/enamuko
Summary: Caspar wants to make sure he and Linhardt are going to be best friends forever.
Relationships: Caspar von Bergliez/Linhardt von Hevring
Series: Casphardt Week [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1535510
Comments: 7
Kudos: 76





	always with me

**Author's Note:**

> This was done for the first day of Casphardt Week! Prompt is 'Childhood'.  
This features mild descriptions of blood. Specifically intentional finger pricking. Just so everyone is aware!

“Lin! Put down your book and come play!”

Caspar had no idea why Linhardt wanted to spend so much time with his head buried in a book, anyway. It wasn’t even like it looked like a  _ good _ book— it didn’t look like a storybook, more like one of the big books his mom would always pull out when it was time for him to study. And he had no idea why Linhardt would want to study when he was around and they could play instead!

He didn’t really understand a lot of stuff about Linhardt, though. Like why he was always so sleepy. It could be nice sometimes to take a nap after spending a whole afternoon running around outside, but Linhardt  _ always _ wanted to take a nap, even though he just sat around reading all day…

But that was just Linhardt. Maybe he was kind of weird, but he was still his best friend.

“I’m comfortable here,” Linhardt said, not even looking up from his book. “Why don’t you come sit over here?”

“C’mon, Lin, you’ve just been sitting around all day…”

He knew Linhardt was going to look up at him with a pout on his face. That was what he  _ always _ did, and it  _ always _ worked and made Caspar feel bad and do whatever it was Lin wanted to do, but not this time! This time he was prepared!

When Linhardt looked up and pouted at him— Caspar pouted right back.

They just stared at each other for a while. Caspar wasn’t going to lose this time— he liked spending time with Linhardt no matter what they were doing, but he was tired of sitting around all day!

He was starting to wonder if he was doing this right— he didn’t really know what he was doing except copying the look Linhardt always had on his face that made him feel like he had kicked a puppy or something— when Linhardt sighed, closed his book, and stood up.

“Fine,” he said, tucking the book under his arm. “I was just finishing that chapter anyway. I suppose it would be a good idea to stretch a bit…”

“Yeah!” Caspar pumped his fist triumphantly. “That’s the spirit, Lin! C’mon, I’ve got something cool I want to show you!”

He grabbed for Linhardt’s hand, dragging him away from the house and towards the woods, ignoring all of Linhardt’s questions about where they were going.

It was supposed to be a surprise, after all!

Linhardt knew as soon as he agreed to…  _ Whatever _ it was that Caspar wanted him to agree to, that it was a bad idea. The last time he’d agreed to follow Caspar somewhere that he was trying to lead him, it had been to convince him to climb up an old tree to show him a bird’s nest in a hollow.

Which had led to them getting attacked by an angry mother bird and the tree branch breaking, leaving Linhardt with a broken arm that probably would have been even worse if he hadn’t landed directly on top of Caspar, breaking his  _ leg _ in the process...

That had ended with the two of them getting a very nasty scolding from their fathers, Caspar being mopey and miserable about being stuck in bed until his leg healed properly, and Linhardt having to deal with the discomfort keeping him awake and not being able to sleep however he’d like and not being able to properly turn book pages…

He didn’t want to go through all of  _ that _ again.

“What you want to show me isn’t going to involve any tree climbing, is it?” He hoped Caspar had learned his lesson after the last time, but he wasn’t going to hold his breath. Caspar seemed to have an awfully short memory for things that got them into trouble…

“Nope!” Caspar said, and kept pulling him along by the hand. Even though Linhardt had longer legs than Caspar, he was walking so fast, almost running, and Linhardt had to jog to keep up and kept almost stumbling—

And then, suddenly, Caspar stopped and Linhardt ran right into his back. Rather than bounce off of him and fall over, Linhardt grabbed Caspar’s shoulders to steady himself; Caspar didn’t seem to mind, not that he thought he would. Now that they weren’t running through the woods that backed onto Caspar’s family’s summer home, Linhardt leaned forward so most of his weight was pressed against Caspar’s back, arms wrapping around his shoulders and chin coming to rest on top of Caspar’s head.

He was probably going to be disappointed when Caspar hit his growth spurt and was tall enough that he couldn’t do this to him anymore.

“Ta-da!”

Caspar obviously didn’t mind that he was leaning against him— Linhardt didn’t think he would, considering most of the time Caspar offered to carry him if that meant he could get him to go somewhere and do something with him, although he offered less ever since their fathers had seen them like that and had scolded them for  _ that _ , too. (Really, falling out of a tree he could understand, but what was wrong with Caspar carrying him? It was practically training for him, and it felt quite nice too…)

Caspar had his arms open wide and was glancing back at him like he was looking for some kind of reaction, but after all that running Linhardt was dozing, and only then did he actually look at where Caspar had brought him…

“Oh…”

Linhardt wasn’t as familiar with Caspar’s summer home as he was with his family’s apartments in Enbarr or their estates, where he spent many days watching Caspar get himself dirty wrestling in the mud with his much larger and stronger older brother while their fathers bickered indoors over politics and their mothers sat drinking tea in the garden, complaining about their husbands spending all their time indoors bickering over politics.

So he had never known Caspar’s family’s home had something like  _ this _ on the property.

“I never knew you had a lake.”

Well, it was more like a pond, but it was big enough that it had a sandy bank and a little dock you could sit on to dangle your feet into the water— or, more importantly, to fish from. He could even see little flashes from the water’s surface as the sunlight caught fish scales and reflected off of them, so it must have been a stocked pond…

“Yeah! Isn’t it neat? Nobody except the gardener really comes out here either, so this could be our cool hangout spot!”

Linhardt wanted to be the voice of reason and say they probably wouldn’t be able to stay there alone for very  _ long _ when he realized that even though they had just run off into the woods, he hadn’t heard any servants calling after them or following, or even their mothers telling them not to go too far…

Had anyone even noticed they were gone? Was anyone even  _ looking _ for them? It was kind of exciting to think that they were totally alone with nobody watching them, for once… True, they’d snuck off from their caretakers more than once, but as they got older they seemed to have more and more freedom to go off on their own without  _ someone _ constantly worrying about where they were or what they were doing…

Maybe one day they’d even be able to go off and have some kind of adventure on their own, like Caspar was always talking about. Linhardt wasn’t sure he really liked the idea of going on an ‘adventure’— it sounded like a lot of effort— but being able to go anywhere he wanted with Caspar without their parents or servants or anyone else breathing down their necks?

Well, it almost sounded  _ worth _ the effort.

This, though, seemed like a good enough idea in the meantime, as long as it didn’t turn out like the tree and the piggyback ride and they ended up getting scolded or punished for running off into the woods without telling anyone…

“I wish I’d brought a fishing pole.” He’d only picked up the hobby recently, mostly because his mother was insistent that he spend more time outside rather than cooped up in his room ‘turning as pale as a ghost’ and it was something he could do that mostly involved sitting quite still.

“I think there’s one back at the house if you want me to go get it.” Caspar pulled away from him to go and pick up a smooth stone from the water’s edge and try to skip it. It sank immediately.

“Hm… Maybe later.” Linhardt followed him and picked up a nice, flat stone, managing with a flick of the wrist to get two skips before it sank. “This  _ is _ nice, Caspar. I’m surprised.”

“Harsh, Lin,” Caspar said, but he was smiling when he said it, so he couldn’t have actually been annoyed with him. Linhardt would be disappointed if Caspar didn’t know him well enough to know when he was joking, though. “Actually, I kinda wanted to ask you something…”

“And you had to bring me all the way out here to do that?”

“K-Kinda? It’s… Kind of weird and I didn’t think our moms would let us if they saw us…”

Well… That peaked Linhardt’s interest. He was also a little worried— considering the things Caspar was willing to do in front of their parents, what would be worrisome enough that he wanted to take him way out into the woods to ask him?

Caspar stood there, not looking him in the eye and scratching the back of his neck nervously, so it really  _ had _ to be something strange...

“Okay then, ask me,” he said when they simply stood there with Caspar staring at his shoes for longer than Linhardt cared for.

“Ah! R-right. But you… You have to promise you won’t get mad. I mean, we don’t have to do it if you don’t want to, obviously, I just don’t want you to get mad because I asked.”

And he was only getting more and more concerned—  _ and _ curious— by the minute.

“Of course I won’t get mad because you asked, Caspar. But I might start getting annoyed if you don’t tell me what you brought me out here to ask me.”

Of course, he probably wouldn’t have actually gotten annoyed no matter how long Caspar took, but sometimes Caspar needed him to say something like that before he would just come out and say what he wanted to say. Caspar was impulsive, but when he got nervous about something he could clam up and—

“Do you want to be blood brothers with me?”

Linhardt was mid-thought when Caspar burst out with that, and it caught him so off-guard that all he could think to say was,

“Uh, I’m not sure it works that way…”

Caspar felt his entire face turn red starting from his ears. Of course he had to come out and say it in such a stupid way— but it was Linhardt’s fault for making him nervous about taking too long to find the way to say it right!

“I don’t mean it like  _ that _ ,” Caspar said, because duh, of course he wasn’t stupid enough to be talking about  _ actually _ being brothers with Lin! “I meant— it’s a thing I read about in a book!”

Ugh, he should have just shown him the pond and forgotten about the other thing! It sounded so stupid now that he was saying it out loud—

“Oh? You were reading for fun? That sounds unlikely.”

Caspar knew Lin’s teasing voice when he heard it. He still stuck his tongue out at his best friend.

“Just because I don’t like reading  _ boring _ books doesn’t mean I don’t like reading them at  _ all _ .” Actually, Caspar had no idea what Linhardt spent all day reading about, except that he usually couldn’t even understand what the titles meant which told him they were probably just as boring as he thought they were. “It was a  _ cool _ book, about knights and stuff.”

It had been a rainy afternoon— not a stormy one, thankfully, just enough that his nanny wouldn’t let him go outside and run around or even go train, so he really didn’t have anything to do after lessons except get himself lost in a book…

“See, in the story, there were these two knights, right?” While they were talking, Linhardt sat down on the sand, and Caspar sat down across from him, which would probably make things easier anyway. “And they were best friends, and they swore an oath to each other.”

He had his bag off his shoulder and was digging through it while he talked, although he was finding it hard to slow down and explain it right instead of letting all the words fall out at once since he was so excited… But also nervous? He knew Linhardt probably wasn’t going to like the idea at first, but hopefully…

“And then they became blood brothers and promised they’d stay by each other’s side no matter what!”

“Okay…” Linhardt’s eyebrows scrunched up. “But how, exactly, do two people  _ become _ blood brothers?”

That was the tricky part. Caspar knew just from the way Linhardt said ‘blood’ that he wasn’t going to like that part, and he didn’t really like it either but he had already come up with a solution that he thought was pretty good…

“Well… In the story they sort of… Cut their hands and then shook hands?”

Linhardt scrunched up his entire face and balled his hands into fists in his lap. Caspar knew he  _ hated _ the sight of blood, hated the sight of his own blood even more, so he felt kind of bad even mentioning it—

“But I had another idea!”

“I hope so,” Linhardt said. “Because that first one isn’t very good.”

Linhardt was pretty pale since he spent all of his time inside, but he looked even paler after that. Caspar bit his lip nervously. This had definitely been a dumb idea but he was in too deep to really back out now—

“W-well.” He cleared his throat and tried to continue on without just laughing and saying he was joking, because he knew Linhardt would know he was lying and he didn’t like lying to him… “I thought… Maybe it didn’t have to be a big cut? It’s supposed to be about swapping blood so I thought maybe you could just… I don’t know, do a little poke and it would work the same way?”

He was chewing on the inside of his cheek while he talked, the way his mother always hated and would tell him to stop doing if she caught him since it made him mumble and she was worried he’d bite himself. He knew he was blushing, embarrassed, that he had wrecked showing such a cool thing to Linhardt by having to bring up something  _ dumb _ like that at the same time.

Caspar usually didn’t care what people thought about him, and didn’t really care if they didn’t think he was smart. He would rather be strong than smart; he hated school work, and Linhardt was plenty smart enough for the both of them anyway, so as long as he wasn’t  _ stupid _ that was all that mattered, right?

But he didn’t want  _ Linhardt _ to think he was dumb, and he especially didn’t want  _ Linhardt _ to think he didn’t care about his feelings, since he  _ knew _ he didn’t like blood. He’d just been so excited at the idea… Especially when he’d read the part in the book about the knights promising to be together forever… A lot of stories about knights and heroes ended with tragedy, or they always talked about the hero ending up with some noblewoman that he’d saved, or something like that. This one had actually ended with the two knights going off and living the rest of their lives together, which sounded a lot better to Caspar than getting married to some noblewoman, and  _ definitely _ sounded better than dying…

Although Linhardt would probably rather be like the princesses in those stories anyway, since he preferred to stay inside and read instead of going around and having adventures… Still. He liked the idea of the two of them just going off together, even if he was probably gonna have to drag Linhardt everywhere since he always hated having to do that kind of work…

Thinking about that kind of stuff was just distracting him, though, and he laughed nervously as he said, “It’s okay, Lin, we don’t have to, sorry if I made this weird—”

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to.”

Caspar looked at him with eyes as wide as saucers, cutting himself off over whatever he’d just been saying— probably something about how it was a stupid idea, which Linhardt didn’t want to hear anyway, because he hated hearing Caspar put himself down like that.

He liked to tease Caspar a lot, but only because he knew Caspar knew he was joking, even when no one else did… If anyone else said something like that, including Caspar himself, Linhardt just wouldn’t stand for it.

“I… Suppose I just need a moment to consider the mechanics of it.”

Thinking about intentionally making himself bleed made Linhardt’s stomach curdle, but the concept of blood brothers… Of making a promise to stay together no matter what and bonding yourself to someone else so permanently…

Well, he didn’t usually like those kinds of stories, since they never seemed especially realistic to him, but he could see where they would appeal to Caspar. And even though he didn’t exactly want to be a knight, and he knew doing something like swapping blood wasn’t going to stop things from happening that might get between them in the future, it felt… Like something important and special, even if it also seemed sort of gross at the same time…

“Just a finger prick would be enough, you think?”

Linhardt was certain Caspar didn’t really know any better than he did, since he’d only read about it in a book, but he really wanted Caspar’s confidence in this situation. And it  _ was _ his idea in the first place.

“Y-yeah! I mean, it’s the… Mixing part that’s important, right?”

“Okay, that makes sense…”

A finger prick, he could probably do. It wouldn’t be any worse than getting a papercut, right? He didn’t like the sight of blood but he wasn’t  _ that _ terrible with it, that something like that would bother him…

“Okay, then,” he said, holding his breath a little even as he said it, hoping he didn’t sound too nervous. “Are you sure this is sanitary, though? I don’t want to go through this just to end up getting an infection from doing this…”

“Oh, I brought a super clean knife!”

“And what about your  _ hands _ , Caspar? Are  _ they _ clean?”

It took them a little while to figure out the logistics of the cleanliness, but eventually Linhardt was as content as he was going to be with the hygiene of the whole thing without them actually going back to the house. Caspar had a sharp knife that he had taken from the kitchen and disinfected properly, which really surprised Linhardt, since he had no idea how Caspar would even know something like that— and then suddenly they were sitting there on the grass, legs folded, with Caspar holding the knife.

“So do you, uh— do you want me to…?”

He held up the knife and gestured to Linhardt with his other hand. Linhardt thought about it for a moment, whether he would rather do it himself or let Caspar do it— and then he decided the less involvement he had in that part of the process, the better.

“You can do it,” Linhardt said, and offered his hand to Caspar.

The puzzled look on Caspar’s face almost made him snatch his hand back, but he took a deep breath and held it in so Caspar wouldn’t hear it shake at all. It wasn’t like he didn’t trust Caspar. It wasn’t like he thought Caspar was going to hurt him. There was just something that would always be nerve-wracking about seeing someone using a knife on you, no matter how benign—

He was so distracted by that thought that he didn’t realize Caspar was already doing it until he felt the sharp prick, barely resisted the urge to snatch his hand back, which would probably make Caspar screw up and hurt him even worse.

He hissed through his teeth as he glanced down at his hand. There was a little bubble of blood welling up on the very tip of his pointer finger, but it wasn’t so bad— it only stung and that much blood wasn’t enough to bother him. Exactly like he’d been thinking earlier, it really wasn’t any worse than a papercut…

Caspar quickly took the knife to his own finger, pressing it in until he made a similar little hissing noise. Then, he took Linhardt’s hand and lined their fingers up so their pointer fingers were pressed together where he’d pricked them, although it was a little awkward since Linhardt’s fingers were longer than Caspar’s so their hands didn’t line up perfectly…

“Is this… Okay?”

Caspar looked nervous and sounded even more nervous. He was staring at Linhardt like he expected him to pull away suddenly, but the worst part was over, so he wasn’t quite sure why.

Now they were really just sitting there, one step away from holding hands, which was a lot better than getting poked with a knife…

“Hey… Linhardt?”

“Yes, Caspar?”

“Uh— thanks. For doing this with me.”

He was scratching the back of his neck the way he usually did when he was nervous— like when they were getting a scolding from their fathers about something he had suggested, even though Linhardt tried all the time to tell him that their fathers were just too strict anyway and he shouldn’t worry about it so much— and Linhardt took the initiative to lace their fingers together, except for where their index fingers were still pressed together.

“Well, I don’t care much for making myself bleed on purpose,” he said, smiling at him. “But the part about vowing to be friends forever, well… I couldn’t pass up that part, could I? Even though this is kind of a weird way of making that promise…”

Caspar had been excited about it, though, and then so nervous when Linhardt hadn’t liked the idea… He couldn’t turn him down, not when Caspar had also gone out of his way to think up a way to make it more comfortable for him, and not when it really hadn’t been that bad, in the end…

“It’s… Nice to think that this makes us even closer than best friends, too.”

And that was really at the heart of it, he supposed. Even just beyond wanting to make Caspar happy and assure him that he wasn’t stupid, the fact was that it felt… Nice, knowing Caspar cared enough about him to want to do something that was supposed to tie them together forever.

They were best friends and if Linhardt had anything to say about it, they were  _ always _ going to be best friends, but Caspar was going to have other friends throughout his life. This? This would always be something the two of them shared, something special…

After all, Linhardt was sure that the list of people in the world who Caspar could convince to  _ swap blood _ with him using a random kitchen knife because he read about it in a novel was a  _ pretty short list _ .

“Yeah!” And now that it was over with, Caspar was back to his usual self, which Linhardt much preferred— even if he was yelling a bit too loud for his liking. “This way we’ll always have a little part of each other no matter where we go or what we do, you know? Oh! And I almost forgot!”

Caspar started digging through his bag again with his free hand and pulled out a small roll of bandages. Almost reluctantly, he pulled his hand away. Linhardt looked down at his finger and saw that it really wasn’t bleeding anymore, though there was a bit of blood smeared around the little prick that Caspar had made on the pad of his finger…

Still, he didn’t complain when Caspar took his handkerchief, carefully wiped away the blood, and wrapped a bandage around his finger. It was sweet, even if it was unnecessary…

Caspar wrapped his own finger the same way even though Linhardt was sure he’d stopped bleeding as well, then just smiled at him— a bright, toothy grin that was very much Caspar. It was much better than seeing him so nervous. He really loved—

He was snapped out of that thought before he could finish it by the sound of someone in the distance calling their names. Caspar looked up suddenly.

“Looks like someone finally realized we were gone…” Linhardt sighed. He’d actually enjoyed this fun little place that Caspar had shown him, and didn’t want to be pulled away so suddenly… “We should go before they find us and tell us we can’t come here anymore.”

It would be terrible if they got banned from coming to such a place… They couldn’t exactly be banned if no one knew where they were or what they’d been doing, and really, most of the time Linhardt only got away with things by skirting around his parents’ rules anyway, which was easier to go if they didn’t actually ban him from doing something…

They were on their feet again, and Caspar took him by the hand to drag him back in the direction they came, towards the voices. And Linhardt let him.

He would follow Caspar anywhere, after all. Whether they were blood brothers or not.

“Slow down, Caspar— we’re not in a  _ race _ .”

With some complaining, of course. But Caspar was used to that, he was sure.

They were best friends, after all.


End file.
